Pakistan militants say pulling out of peace pact
Source: Reuters
(Adds detail, byline) By Haji Mujtaba MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, July 15 (Reuters) - Pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan tribal region announced on Sunday they were pulling out of a peace deal with the government, accusing authorities of violating the pact. North Waziristan is a hotbed of support for al Qaeda and Taliban militants and authorities signed a peace deal with the local fighters in September in a bid to marginalise their foreign allies. "The Taliban are forced to announce the end of the agreement," the leadership council or shura of the militants said in a statement issued in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan. Under the pact, authorities agreed to stop military operations against the militants in return for their pledge that they would not send fighters across the border into Afghanistan and would not launch attacks on security forces and government officials in North Waziristan. The shura said the security forces had launched several attacks on militants' since then. The pro-Taliban militants also said the government had violated the agreement by deploying more troops in the region. Officials were not immediately available for comment. Critics have said the North Waziristan pact created sanctuaries for the militants in the region and U.S. and Afghan officials said cross-border attacks increased several fold after the deal. U.S. security officials say al Qaeda members plot violence from sanctuaries in North Waziristan and other lawless tribal regions on the Pakistani side of the border and feared a military strike could spawn new militant activity in an important U.S. ally. "They seem to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan. We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications," John Kringen, the CIA's director of intelligence, told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. The shura of the Taliban militants warned tribal police to stay away from the army soldiers deployed in the region or face consequences. Twenty-four paramilitary soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in a suicide bomb attack in North Waziristan on Saturday. The attack appeared to be linked to an army assault on a radical mosque in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday in which 75 supporters of hardline clerics, were killed. Many of the militants entrenched in the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque complex, which also housed a sprawling religious seminary or madrasa for women, were drawn from the conservative northwest and the tribal areas.
| AlertNet news is provided by |










